This invention relates in general to a glove for improved gripping and, in particular, to a glove incorporating an elastic strap for providing an increased, yet readily adjustable, gripping force to the user's grip.
More specifically, but without restriction to the particular embodiment and/or use which is shown and described for purposes of illustration, this invention relates to a gripping glove incorporating an elastic strap through which various tension forces can be applied for imposing an auxiliary gripping force on the individual fingers of the user, which force is adjustable while wearing the glove.
In recreational or sports activities such as tennis, golf, baseball or racketball, for example, one of the important factors in determining player proficiency is the manner in which a racket, club or bat is gripped by the user. If an insufficient amount of gripping force is used, the racket or club will twist in the hand upon impact with a ball, causing the ball to be misdirected. Many sports enthusiasts, in an attempt to prevent this from happening, concentrate so much on gripping the racket, club or bat tightly that an incorrect swing occurs.
Since many such sports permit a player to utilize a glove to improve gripping, incorporating a grip-enhancing force applying system into the glove would increase the user's gripping force. Such a glove would be an improvement over those presently available, which only enhance the frictional relationship between the material of the glove and the object to be gripped. The glove would provide an increased gripping force so that a user would be able to grip with a sufficient gripping force to prevent the racket or club from twisting, while permitting the user to concentrate more on a proper swing in order to improve game proficiency.
Since it would be desirable to vary the amount of force to accommodate individual players, a further feature of such a gripping glove is to permit variation of the magnitude of the auxiliary gripping force applied to adjoining fingers, and to even permit changes in the force applied to an individual finger as the player's abilities or physical conditioning changes. One example of such a gripping glove is disclosed in the inventor's co-pending application "HARD-GRIP GLOVE", filed May 12, 1986 under Ser. No. 862,262 and now U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,914, 6/30/87. The gripping glove of that invention utilizes a number of coiling springs which are interchangeable to vary an auxiliary gripping force. The present invention utilizes elastic straps so that the auxiliary gripping force can be selectively varied by the user more easily, even while using the gripping glove.